Stageworks

The collaborative art of new play development

Stageworks is a hands-on opportunity for playwrights of faith to gather, share their work, and receive feedback from industry professionals; while creating new work together that grapples with contemporary issues and how faith, life, and art intersect. We will learn from experts about the art of collaboration with other writers, artists and theatre companies, and wrestle through the realities of being produced in the theatre industry. This working conference track will gather a cohort of writers and producers to create a standard of excellence as we pioneer an educational, regional, and commercial path for faith-based playwrights.

Join in:

Playwrights Scene Slam: You can read a five-minute scene from your current work for peers and industry professionals followed by facilitated feedback and networking.

48 Hour Play Prompt and Collaborative Writing Initiative: We’ll choose a current social issue, break into 2 groups, and write together. The final products will be read on Sunday at the closing session.

And plenty of opportunities to promote your work through videos, production pics, script excerpts, etc.

See the schedule below and, if you already know you want to be there with us, register now!

Track leaders:

Michelle Long

An accomplished writer and director, Michelle Hoppe-Long has worked in film, television and theatre for the past twenty-eight years, garnering over fifty awards for her outstanding original work, creative design, and exceptional talent in both stage and screen venues, including a 2008 Crown Award for her work on The List with Malcolm McDowell, released by FOX.

A member of the Dramatists Guild, she has received playwrighting awards from the North Carolina Theatre Conference for her original musical, Ladies First, and play So Help Me, God, which was also chosen as the CITA outstanding new play of 2009. Michelle was also writer and co-creator of The Knock Knock Show, a children’s television program airing on the Fox Family channel. She has directed across the country, garnering best director nods from the Southeastern Theatre Conference, and from the North Carolina Theatre Conference for seven consecutive years.

Michelle has used her vast experience at both the professional and educational level, investing in the future of the arts as a board member of CITA and NCTC. She has worked additionally as Director of Fine Arts at a private college preparatory school in Charlotte, North Carolina, building an internationally recognized program which won her the honor of North Carolina K-12 Educator of the Year for 2009-2010. She was chosen as one of the 50 Most Influential Women in Charlotte, and currently serves as the Director of Education at Children’s Theatre of Charlotte, one of the largest professional Theatre for Young Audiences companies in the United States, where she directs for the MainStage and is a part of the development team for new works.

Bruce D. Long

Bruce Long is President and CEO of Eye Opening Entertainment, and produces on Broadway, the West End and Off-Broadway. His production credits include Memphis the musical, Doctor Zhivago, Tuck Everlasting, Of Mice and Men starring James Franco and Chris O’Dowd and Hands on a Hardbody; and he has two productions in active development: By Grace, a new musical centered around Hollywood icon Grace Kelly’s engagement to Prince Rainier III, and I Dream, a new rhythm-and-blues opera about the life of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Bruce has had extensive experience over the past twenty-five years working in theater, film, television, video and live-event production with companies and non-profits such as NASCAR, IBM, The Business Journal Network and The Council for Children’s Rights. His documentary Wireman 101: Queens Course in History and the television series American Entrepreneur have both been broadcast on PBS.

He is a graduate of the Commercial Theatre Institute’s Advanced Program for Commercial Producers and Managers and was chosen from an international pool of candidates for the CTI-O’Neil Theater Center Summer Producing Intensive, working directly with playwrights in the National Playwrights Conference and the National Music Theater Conference. Bruce holds a BA in Speech/Theatre, an MA in Acting/Directing, and has completed two years of a Ph.D. in Global Leadership and Entrepreneurship.